Bert and Ernie are ed a gay uple, 'Same Street' wrer claims

are burt and ernie gay

A former wrer for the Muppets said he nsired Bert and Ernie to be gay — and Same Street quickly refuted his terpretatn

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BERT AND ERNIE ARE ED A GAY UPLE, 'SAME STREET' WRER CLAIMS

* are burt and ernie gay *

A former wrer for Same Street said a recent terview that he nsired Bert and Ernie to be gay — but the show rebutted this claim, sayg the puppets “do not have a sexual orientatn.

SAME STREET SAYS BERT AND ERNIE 'DON'T HAVE A SEXUAL ORIENTATN' AFTER LONGTIME WRER CLAIMS THEY'RE GAY

In a slew of tweets on Tuday, Frank Oz said Bert and Ernie aren't gay after a former "Same Street" wrer said the duo are a uple. * are burt and ernie gay *

“I always felt that whout a huge agenda, when I was wrg Bert & Ernie, they were [gay], ” Saltzman said. ’ But those two… you had characters that appealed to a gay dience. Frank Oz is voice of dozens of puppets and muppets as one of Jim Henson's earlit llaborators — and now the storied puppeteer is lendg his voice to the bate over whether or not "Same Street" characters Bert and Ernie are gay.

FRANK OZ WEIGHS ON 'SAME STREET' WRER SAYG BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY

After a former "Same Street" wrer said Bert and Ernie are gay an terview, the non-prof behd "Same Street," Same Workshop, issued a statement regardg the characters' sexualy. * are burt and ernie gay *

Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay.

ARE BERT AND ERNIE A GAY UPLE? FALLY, THE ANSWER

Bert and Ernie are not gay. That is, acrdg to "Same Street," which released an official statement on the matter on Thursday rpondg to an onle mpaign llg for the pair to be married. "Bert and Ernie are bt iends," the statement posted on Same Street's Facebook page reads. "They were created to teach prchoolers [...] * are burt and ernie gay *

Why the need to fe people as only gay? There's much more to a human beg than jt straightns or gayns.

THE FIGHT OVER SAME STREET’S BERT AND ERNIE AS A GAY UPLE, EXPLAED

A former 'Same Street' wrer nfirms that he wrote Bert and Ernie a gay relatnship. * are burt and ernie gay *

"Director/producer/puppeteer Frank Oz pos for a portra at the "Muppet Guys Talkg - Secrets Behd the Show the Whole World Watched" at the 2017 SXSW Wkelmeyer / Getty Imag for SXSW fileOz ntued to go back-and-forth wh people rpondg to his tweet who asked why the lorful puppets uldn't be gay. Bert and Ernie were created to be bt iends, and to teach young children that people n get along wh those who are very different om themselv, " the workshop said a statement emailed to NBC ntued to take to Twter, tellg followers he felt he uldn't ll Bert and Ernie gay bee his md wasn't asked why he felt the need to intify the puppets as "not gay, " Oz replied: "The same need I would feel if Bert were intified as a lebacker for the Colts.

Next time I would be very terted to know: If Bert and Ernie were ed gay, would they be different than they are now?

ARE BERT AND ERNIE GAY?

Are Bert and Ernie gay? Same Street has always had one nsistent official answer (no, they’re not), but that hasn’t stopped the two famo felt roommat om beg gay ins and occupyg a unique role the queer rights movement.

Controversy over their perceived homosexualy has raged termtently for s, spearhead by both alli and adversari — and a new flare-up shows that ’s not gog away anytime soon. The official negatn was echoed by puppetmaster Frank Oz, who origally performed Bert oppose Jim Henson as Ernie, and who stated on Twter that “They’re not [gay], of urse. For those queer fans lookg for narrative subtext, there’s plenty to be found the personas of Bert and Ernie; after all, there’s a reason we as a culture have been discsg their relatnship for s, a reason that they ntue to be held up as gay ins across generatns — and a reason people have spent s beg hoppg mad about .

THE MAKERS OF 'SAME STREET' ISSUED AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT REGARDG BERT AND ERNIE'S SEXUALY, AFTER A FORMER WRER SAID HE VIEWED THEM AS A GAY UPLE

It’s all pretty gay!

Among homosexuals, Bert and Ernie of Same Street are the real thg.

BERT & ERNIE ARE NOT GAY, SAME STREET SAYS STATEMENT

Bert and Ernie nduct themselv the same lovg, discreet way that lns of gay men, women and hand puppets do. “I don’t believe there was much public discsn, ser or otherwise, about the crypto-gayns of The Odd Couple the 1960s and ’70s, ” he wrote an email.

WHY MATTERS THAT BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY, WHICH THEY AREWHY MATTERS THAT BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY, WHICH THEY ARE

“That kd of disurse only appeared ncerng work about straight characters by gay wrers — most famoly, whether Who’s Aaid of Virgia Woolf was somehow ‘really’ about a gay uple, ” he add.

“In 1980, when I published my Bert & Ernie thg, there were still no out gay characters mass media. The piece of the zegeist I was rpondg to was, jt a after Stonewall (which BTW occurred a few months before Same Street premiered) and the first pri march, the hly ‘normalized’ nature of out gayns plac like New York. The nversatn between Saltzman and terviewer Reddish is illumatg and poignant, equently returng to Saltzman’s experience as a young gay man the early ’80s, one fdg his way out of the closet jt as the AIDS epimic was begng to be wily unrstood.

BERT AND ERNIE WERE GAY (AT LEAST THE MD OF ONE SAME STREET WRER)

“I n remember pchg to the tn partment, the gatekeepers of the curriculum, gay ntent, jt to get off my nscience. But there was one place Saltzman was able to sert his own lived experience as a gay man to his wrg, and that was through the personas of Bert and Ernie. “There is a difference, ” he told the Tim, between “brg[g] what you know to your work” and “Bert and Ernie beg gay.

ARE BERT AND ERNIE GAY? ‘SAME STREET’ WRER SAYS HIS COMMENTS WERE MISTERPRETED

But ’s also important to note that if Saltzman’s origal ment to Queerty that “when I was wrg Bert & Ernie, they were” lovers was te, seems to have been an impulse born out of the ep existential crisis of beg gay durg the AIDS epimic.

It was an era when an entire culture was unr attack — if not om the disease directly, then om the many homophobic parameters that arguably worsened the spe of the tragedy. In that era, primarily due to homophobic agators, Bert and Ernie beme perpetually discsed parts of the so-lled “gay agenda.

ARE BERT AND ERNIE GAY? A REVIEW OF THE EVINCE

In the ’90s, Bert and Ernie were drafted to the “homosexual agenda.

In the ’90s, Bert and Ernie beme viewed by some as threateng elements of a homosexual liftyle that was perceived as encroachg upon a mastream heteronormative culture. In 1993, the New Voice, a regnal gay newspaper, reported that Tupelo, Mississippi, gay panic had spng up over the appearance of Bert and Ernie as part of a Same Street tour stop at a lol arena.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* ARE BURT AND ERNIE GAY

Same Street Rponds to Claims That Bert and Ernie Are Gay | Time .

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